I'm doing pretty well on most of the topics we've covered so far in Barbri but Con Law is kicking my ass.

I feel like I know the material about as well as any other topic but when I do an essay or MBE question, a lot of the time I'm completely lost as to what sub-topic within Con Law the question is asking about. Most of the time, I'll know the piece of black letter law in question when I read the model answer, I just would have never thought to apply it that way to that set of facts.

JayDubya wrote:I'm doing pretty well on most of the topics we've covered so far in Barbri but Con Law is kicking my ass.

I feel like I know the material about as well as any other topic but when I do an essay or MBE question, a lot of the time I'm completely lost as to what sub-topic within Con Law the question is asking about. Most of the time, I'll know the piece of black letter law in question when I read the model answer, I just would have never thought to apply it that way to that set of facts.

Any suggestions?

Don't feel bad! Con law was my worst MBE subject for some reason, I got a 133 raw on barbri's midterm, which put me in the top 20% nationwide, yet my con law score was in the bottom 10%. I actually was scoring better on prop. and K than con law.

I think the hard part is narrowing down the issue that they are getting at because it always seems to be a few constitutional issues wrapped into each question.

My suggestion would be to just keep practicing and thoroughly read the explanatory answers and re-read the law if you got it wrong and realize why that answer choice is right.

Another suggestion that worked for me was I usually tried to have in my head the answer I was looking for before looking at the answer choices because all of the con law choices usually seem to sound "good" or "right" if you don't know the law and you can easily tripped up on picking the wrong one in con law.

I know that's not much, but it helped me improve a little. Also, everyone has a weak subject, so while con law may be yours, X subject may be someone else's. No one is going to be acing each subject. Good luck!

You bring up a very valid point. Con Law more than any other subject is known for exactly what you've described here. You come to the end of the fact pattern not even sure what is being tested! If you do enough questions, though, you'll start to recognize certain issues that you weren't able to recognize prior to working through all these questions. That's the case for all subjects but especially for Con Law. In other words, after working though enough questions you'll better recognize when the Dormant Commerce Clause is tested, or when standing is testing, etc. Just keep at it; Con Law is a bit different than the other subjects; it can be a real grind.

SilvermanBarPrep wrote:You bring up a very valid point. Con Law more than any other subject is known for exactly what you've described here. You come to the end of the fact pattern not even sure what is being tested! If you do enough questions, though, you'll start to recognize certain issues that you weren't able to recognize prior to working through all these questions. That's the case for all subjects but especially for Con Law. In other words, after working though enough questions you'll better recognize when the Dormant Commerce Clause is tested, or when standing is testing, etc. Just keep at it; Con Law is a bit different than the other subjects; it can be a real grind.

Sean (Silverman Bar Prep)

This was 100% true for me as well. I struggled enormously with Con Law MBE questions, until about 2 weeks before the actual exam, at which point I started to recognize the concepts that were being tested each time that the subject appeared in an MBE question.